


perfect.

by Pained_heart



Category: No Fandom
Genre: M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Original work - Freeform, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 23:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pained_heart/pseuds/Pained_heart
Summary: Hospital stays, weak skin and bones, throwing up, this is how life is seen through Richard's eyes. One blow after another he's finding less and less  reasons to fight, then laying in bed with the captain of the baseball team gives him a reason to get motivated. And I'm the end a reason to fight.





	perfect.

    He stares at me and instinctively I look away. I know I'm still boney and skinny, I'm pale and honestly it's blatantly obvious I'm sick. "Can you please stop looking at me?" I ask my boyfriend self consciously.

"Okay? Why?" he asks back, his eyes going to his food.

"It makes me feel like a freak," I whisper while looking at my lap, feeling badly for bringing it up now when all he wanted was to take me out to a nice breakfast before going to the hospital.

"Well you're not," Tommy says bluntly, grabbing my hand from across the table. "You Richard Daniel McKinnon, are the most beautiful boy in all of Chicago. And you can fight me on that, but it won't change my mind. I love you and your body." When I look up and see the look of pure love on his face it causes a hot blush to rise on my face, flushing my cheeks.

"We uh... we should get the check," I suggest softly with a smile.

 

Everyday that week he was there with me at the hospital, he sat next to me while I drew, and played with my six month old baby sister. He stayed with me long after my uncles and cousin had left, and even ate with my family and me. He'd be the first one there in the morning and would leave with my mom and siblings when visiting hours were over, despite me telling him multiple times not to waste his spring break like this. To which he responded that he was exactly where he wanted to be, but I did make him promise not to show up on Friday considering I'm getting out at like ten in the morning. That is until I spent the better half of the morning with my head in the toilet throwing up everything from the week. "I was doing so good." I rush out through tears of pain caused by the clenching of my stomach, before my head goes back into the bowl. My dad rubs my back as I throw up and sob, whispering small things to me.

"Shhh, it's okay baby boy."

"Why?" I sob hard, hating my entire existence in that moment.

"Shhh." He repeats. I see him and the worried look all over his face from my peripheral vision as my stomach settles, and I sit back on my heels. My mom hands me a washcloth and a cup of water to rinse my mouth from the sour taste of bile.

"Can we please just go home? Please?" My dad worriedly looks at my mom before saying yes as long as I lay down as soon as we get home.

 

I agree and am discharged to go home where Tommy is waiting for us, the smile on  his face immediately dropping as he rushes over to me. Maybe he notices how weak I am on my own feet when I get out of the car, or maybe it's just my general appearance. Me being the master of badly timed jokes decides to comment on that last thought. "I really look that bad?" I say with a weak grin. He doesn't respond, just looks at my dad.

"I got him Doc. Up to his room, lay down, door open."

"Thank you Tom, I'll be up in a little bit with a bucket, some crackers, and ginger ale." Tommy nods and helps me up to my room. I can hear my dad calling my uncle/godfather asking if Tommy can stay a while because I'm not feeling good but after that I tune it out. I'm so over everything. I'm tired of feeling like a passenger in my own life, a guest on the neverending merry-go-round of ebbs and flows. One minute I feel fine and the next I can't even stand on my own two feet and the toilet is like another part of me. While my sluggish body lays curled up against my boyfriend, my mind races a mile a minute with all the crap I have to put up with when all I want to be is happy with my family, I want to graduate next year and go off to college with Tommy, I want to have a normal life and not one controlled by hospital weeks and my body's lack of stamina.

"You wanna go to prom?"

"Huh?" My internal tangent is interrupted by Tommy's soft voice (His voice is normally loud and full of light, but when I'm hurting it's almost like he is too just based on the tone he uses)

"Do you want to go to prom?" He asks again, more slowly this time and it still takes me a second to register that he asked me something normal, something that every single teenager deals with.

"You asking me to prom?" I respond, a weight I didn't even know was there semi lifted off my shoulders.  

"Yes." He grabs my hand and intertwining our fingers together. "If you'll have me." I smile softly and nod, fighting the urge to kiss him.

"Absolutely." I whisper snuggling back up against him, our fingers still meshed together and now I can feel his other hand lightly tracing patterns on my back until I fall asleep.

Prom was a month and a half away,or  six weeks, three hospital weeks, forty-two days when Tommy asked me and in those days I got more excited than I did when we were gonna go to homecoming together. That seems like a lifetime ago and it wasn't even six months ago, but then again so muched changed the biggest of which is that since I got asked to the last big school dance my boyfriend came out and I actually got to have a real relationship with him instead of playing 'This is just my best friend and nothing has changed in fifteen years.' everyday. Also in those forty-two days Tommy and I stopped working out together. We both do work out still  just not with each other.

I worked out almost daily with the catcher to Tommy's pitching; Lucas, and in the height of baseball season he was glad for the work out buddy. "Alright that's my reps." I lower the bench press bar, smiling.

"Dude you looked ripped, who knew a cancer kid could look so...."

"Hot?" I interrupt smiling. "And this is  is what forty days of a ton of working out looks like. It's been hell on me with the chemo and all but it's worth it. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go meet my dad. I'm picking out flowers for Tommy" I say wiping the sweat off my face and heading into the locker room to change. A month ago I hated the way the cancer made me look, all the weight I lost because of chemo, I couldn't stand seeing my bones sticking out of my skin but now... now as I stand in front of a mirror I see the slight definition of abs on my stomach, the curvature of biceps on my arms, yeah I'm still thin and it's nothing like I had before the leukemia came back,  but now at least its a healthy thin and I'm happy with myself.

Quickly I throw on my actual clothes and rush out to my car, a bright orange Ford mustang- a car much cooler than me, and drive to the flower shop. I park next to my dad's car, not seeing him I assume he went inside and go in. The smell is overwhelming, the sight of so many of different vibrant colors is like a sensory overload. My dad's hand on my shoulder brings me from my awe before we hug.

"How was school kiddo?" He asks pulling back and my eyes go back to the colors. 

"Good, it was good. Workout was good too." I say quietly picking up my baby sister from her car seat after being pulled from my trance by her babbling. "Mom has Ryan?"

"Yes, but I figured you'd wanna see Reagen." I smile and kiss her cheek. I love my little brother and sister; they help me through all the bull- although lately it seems to be thinning at least. "And I figured right I see. C'mon let's find some flowers for Tommy's boutineer. He and Uncle Dan have already been here to pick out yours."

"I'm lucky my godfather could foster him aren't I?" I ask sheepishly

"Incredibly lucky, now c'mon proms in two days we should've done this last week. " I nod and we walk around the shop, it takes about ten minutes for me to find two beautiful roses, both so unalike but yet they match so perfectly. After we leave the shop I'm happy, hopeful, and peaceful something that before lately has seemed so unreachable and that night I fall asleep and dream of late nights  ten years from now. Both Tommy and I wearing shiny silver bands on our left hands and making brownies at one o'clock in the morning just because we can but then waking up dead tired the next morning and going to my parent's house to celebrate my little brother graduating high school, not daring of sharing news that we're gonna be dads.

 

Two nights later my stomach is all knotted up as I watch myself in the bathroom mirror, fixing every minor detail with my tux wanting... no needing it to be perfect only stopping when my mom grabs my hands.

"You look perfect baby boy. Tommy is lucky to have you." I smile and hug her, holding tight until I hear a knock on the door and the dog bark. Mom and I release, I look at her, swallow the lump in my throat, and take a deep breath before grabbing Tommy's boutineer from my room and going downstairs. My breath catches again when I see Tommy standing there, his blue eyes shining and that's when I know with one hundred percent certainty that the blue and red roses I chose were perfect.

"Way to make a guy feel bad." I joke drawing his attention but then biting my lip as I notice his eyes intently scanning me and my first instinct is insecurity, 'He's picking out all my flaws. He could've gone with someone so much better than me.' But then I glance down at myself; my tux fits perfectly allowing him to see what I've been working so hard on perfecting, and when I look back up he's smiling and I don't even realize that I am too.

"You look amazing Richie Rich, like really amazing." I blush and go over to him, opening the clear box holding the small flower arrangement and pulling the pin from it before setting it against his lapel and replacing the pin hearing camera clicks from two different cameras the whole time. He does the same, the lavender rose and the yellow rose contrasting perfectly. There's a lot of more camera clicks from my parents camera as well as my uncle's, but my mind isn't really paying attention. Instead it's focused on the normality, staying in that constant state as I drive to the school, through Grand March, and halfway into the dance. My mind stays like that until a slow song comes on and I pull Tommy to the dance floor. We tangle our bodies together swaying to the music.  The lights make everything look like a dream and it takes everything in me to convince myself it isn't. This is real and this is good. It's then and there I decide if I could live in this moment I would. It's everything I've wanted and then some. I feel good, I look good, I have a guy who despite everything I go through is always there and helps me in any way he can. I have my family to lean on through anything and everything, and with the way things have been going my family is just gonna keep on growing. Then I look back and realize that I've always had this; nothing changes from my best days to my worst days and with that in mind I let myself forget everything and just enjoy this moment. Because this... this life is far from perfect, but it's perfect for me.


End file.
